Hazel+Johnson

On May 5, 1914, 21-year-old Hazel Dell Johnson, an office worker, died at a Chicago residence from an illegal abortion performed by an unknown perpetrator. It is likely that the perpetrator was one of the many doctors or midwives who operated thinly-disguised abortion practices in Chicago at the time.

Hazel was a native of Indiana, the daughter of Leonard and Frances (Powell) Johnson.Hazel's mother had died in March of 1903.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].



 For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion] Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database



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